


Touch

by sinistrocular



Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M, Scopophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 20:39:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3222704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistrocular/pseuds/sinistrocular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taekwoon could still recall the first time Wonsik touched him, when his fingers kissed his ever so briefly the first day in the academy. The other accepted the slip of paper with a grin too large for Taekwoon’s liking; it spoke of mischief that Taekwoon certainly did not want to participate in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> A standalone prequel to Corpus Delicti, though it helps if you've read that.

Taekwoon could still recall the first time Wonsik touched him, when his fingers kissed his ever so briefly the first day in the academy. The other accepted the slip of paper with a grin too large for Taekwoon’s liking; it spoke of mischief that Taekwoon certainly did not want to participate in. He had joined after three years of intense training and far too many thin envelopes in the mail. Long ago, he wallpapered his shelter with ‘qualified candidates’ and ‘encourage you to apply again in 90 days’ and Wonsik seemed to believe he could strip his guard away with a twist of his lips. Except, a brush of fingers against his own accompanied the smile and Taekwoon recoiled before they could leave a lasting impression on his skin.

“Oh, so we’re roommates?” Wonsik asked though the notice in his hands clearly spelled out the fact. “I’m Kim Wonsik. Or I guess we’re supposed to use our codenames now. Trainee Agent Ravi.”

Wonsik extended his hand and Taekwoon refused to risk further contact as he turned away. The safety of the elevator soothed Taekwoon’s nerves only briefly as he leaned his head back against the wall. Sharing a room with this menace would surely exhaust him.

After three months, Taekwoon fully realized Wonsik’s affinity for touch. At first, his roommate brushed dust off his shoulders or offered a hand up, but moved on to innocent nudges when Taekwoon offered only silence to questions. Then the true scourge began as Wonsik found every excuse to make every casual touch last.

“Leo.” Wonsik’s arm curled about his shoulder and tugged him in close, his voice a sharp contrast to the friendly language of his body. “I overheard Lieutenant Hani the other day. Something about a disciplinary meeting.”

Taekwoon’s headed pivoted on a razor’s edge and Wonsik laughed, raw and hollow as he shoved the former’s head to the away. As if joking. As if all of this were one huge joke to the sniper. Wonsik was a natural, Taekwoon would never deny that, and among the current crop of recruits easily the best suited for UCTF’s Special Operations Unit. Meanwhile, though Taekwoon studied codes and protocols until late at night, Wonsik waltzed through exams like he had been born to do this.

With a rough shove, Taekwoon dismissed every word that fell from the other’s mouth. Wonsik frowned, the edges of his face twisting with some distant cousin of concern, but Taekwoon ignored both that and the hand that reached out to reclaim his shoulder. No. No, he was done pretending to be friendly with someone who couldn’t understand how taxing every day had become. No longer could he spring up out of bed with the eager energy of a fresh recruit, though he tried. He tried so fucking hard and for Wonsik to _joke_ about a disciplinary meeting was lower than low. 

Taekwoon wanted to retaliate. The others in their class bent under his glare, but Wonsik had never seemed scared of him, only this friendly facade so fake he might as well be wearing a mask. He painted joy and anger in the same colors, strokes so detailed and meticulous to convince everyone around him. Wonsik tamed others with his variety as well, showcasing a new piece for every situation. If Taekwoon openly fought back, the rest of their class would know in an instant.

So Taekwoon only added to his shelter, used this as mortar to close up the holes. He slapped it on without grace in wide, messy smears, but never obscured the most important words on his countless rejection letters, ‘we regret to inform you that your application to the UCTF has been declined.’ Those few words became a daily benediction, a constant reminder to work harder and ignore any distractions. When his aunt called a week later, he asked her to bring the box of letters from under his bed. He claimed they had been written by his parents before they died, little notes of love that he never threw away.

She came sooner than he thought and turned over his collection of rejections with a bright smile.

“Hey, Leo.” Wonsik had luck like no other. “Is this your sister?”

“I’m Taekwoon’s aunt,” she answered, both savior and executioner all in one. “Jung Hwasa.”

“Aunt Hwasa,” Wonsik crooned and Taekwoon’s fingers tightened around the box. “Taekwoonie didn’t tell me about how pretty you are!”

Taekwoon bristled, though he tried to hide it behind his rough-textured facade. What the hell was Wonsik’s angle? What could he possibly gain from idle flattery? Or perhaps he attempted to persuade his aunt to believe he and Taekwoon were friends.

“Ah, yes, my Woonie is not much of a talker.” She reached out and pinched his cheek. Taekwoon wished she wouldn’t.

“Has he told you how well he’s doing?” Wonsik asked and Taekwoon grit his teeth so hard, he swore the former could hear them cracking under the pressure. Again with this constant insulting.

“I have to get back to my studies,” Taekwoon interrupted any answer from his aunt. “Thank you for bringing this.”

He loosed his hold on the box just enough to hold it up a few inches higher.

“Of course, Woonie.” His aunt’s smile faded but she nodded all the same. He hated to disappoint her more than he hated Wonsik. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close.

“I’ll take good care of him!” Wonsik patted Taekwoon on the back, and he did his best to not flinch. Not in front of the woman who raised him. 

Wonsik pulled his fingers away and his smile cracked enough for Taekwoon to see this time. The heat of triumph coiled tight in his chest as he waved to his aunt one more time before he scurried to the elevator, hoping to beat Wonsik to it. He did, but only barely. In the gap between the closing doors, he saw that same concern as before, gentle navy brushed along his cheekbones and angled at the bridge of his nose. Despite the animosity that beat a proud drum in his chest, Taekwoon hated that color on Wonsik.

One night, less than a week later, Taekwoon returned from training to find Wonsik sitting on his bed rather than his own, with Taekwoon’s dogeared copy of _UCTF Codes and Protocols_ in his hands. At the click of the door, Wonsik jumped nearly a foot in the air and a folded piece of off-white parchment fluttered to the ground. Taekwoon dashed for the letter first, all too familiar with the source of his personal litany, but Wonsik beat him to it and Taekwoon’s hands closed around Wonsik’s warm ones in his attempt. He swallowed, unable to think for a moment, before he slid one hand to the smooth skin of his roommate’s wrist and pressed firmly against Wonsik’s ulna nerve. Wonsik released the letter in an instant (and accompanied by a cry of pain that Taekwoon never wanted to hear). Before his roommate could respond, Taekwoon trekked back across the room, his mind spinning as he pulled The Box from under the bed.

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Wonsik attempted to strike up a conversation, drawing a match across Taekwoon’s textured facade.

Taekwoon ignored Wonsik and tucked the letter back into its place among the others, making a mental note to stop using them as bookmarks in the future. Memorization would etch the words in deeper, after all. Keeping notes easily accessible would only cause laziness.

“Leo.” Taekwoon felt Wonsik’s presence behind him but for once, the latter hadn’t touched him within two seconds of seeing him. “Look, I don’t know what I did, but—“

Taekwoon heard a sharp exhale, its warmth slithering easily through the thin rayon of his training uniform, lingering on his skin in ways he never expected.

“Shit,” Wonsik cursed and Taekwoon turned his head just enough to look at the other.

Instead of watching him in return, Wonsik’s gaze had drifted down to the box. Rather than the usual deep blue, a deep umber sharpened the angle of Wonsik’s frown, ridged his brow, and hedged the creases at his eyes. Taekwoon watched as the colors shifted darker the longer Wonsik stared at the numerous letters filling the box. Wonsik’s plump lips opened, struggled to form the first consonant of his condescending speech, and then closed again. Under thin lashes, Wonsik’s gaze finally flitted up to meet Taekwoon’s and the ugly colors of before softened into lavender.

“I don’t need your sympathy.” Taekwoon cut off any attempts at consoling as he closed the lid and ran his fingers along the edges roughed from use.

Wonsik didn’t shrink before him or offer any apologies and instead nodded silently. As Taekwoon bent down to tuck his trove of failures under his bed again, Wonsik stepped back to give him space and once Taekwoon straightened again, Wonsik had crossed to his own bed. Silence sealed their conversation and Taekwoon collected his pajamas from the bed before retreating to the shared bathroom down the hall. When he returned, his tattered copy of the _UCTF Codes and Protocols_ lay on his bed and Wonsik on his own, turned on his side away from Taekwoon. Good. Maybe his roommate had finally learned the meaning of personal space.

The replacement bookmark he opened to the next morning in the library left his anger with no choice but to fly to the hills. At lunch, they briefly ran into each other and Wonsik’s smile cracked at the edges before he stepped back to give Taekwoon more than enough room to eat his food. And to study when Taekwoon returned in the evening. And to talk with his aunt on the phone. In fact, Wonsik’s seemed like a ghost, though his presence had been annoying but moderately tolerable before (or mostly when Wonsik found it necessary to initiate body contact over little things like returning his library card). Now, his absence seemed all the more oppressive than his presence had ever been. Now, those little annoyances that built into his irrational hatred existed only in the past.

One night, when Wonsik didn’t return to their room, Taekwoon resolved that he would at least make sure his roommate lived. The library and the shooting range turned up empty, but the gym didn’t. A quick glance inside revealed Wonsik, among a handful of other trainees, working in separate areas of the room. Wonsik practiced what might be disarms with a dummy, or attempting to, anyway. Wonsik manhandled the vacant-eyed thing with clumsy movements and more often than not the dummy still ended up knocking him over. Unable to stop himself, Taekwoon laughed, the only noise in the room other than the grunts of trainees. Blinking, Wonsik paused his own efforts and looked around. Taekwoon hid his smile behind his hand and attempted to conceal his chuckle with a cough. As soon as Wonsik’s eyes fell upon Taekwoon, though, the other turned back toward the dummy, leaving Taekwoon to watch his shoulders heave with apparent exhaustion.

Taekwoon thought of his bookmark, of the neat handwriting that curved like a smile across the paper, and crossed to the Wonsik and the dummy.

He reached out and covered Wonsik’s shoulder with his hand, pale fingers spread wide across his roommate’s glistening skin. Wonsik startled and glanced over his shoulder, meeting Taekwoon’s gaze with something akin to alarm that left his roommate almost exposed before him.

“I can help you,” Taekwoon said when Wonsik didn’t offer any immediate reply. “With disarms.”

Wonsik blinked again and rosegold washed away the umber and navy alike, leaving behind a radiant smile.

They practiced, every night for hours and Taekwoon came to treasure the ritual. Wonsik’s hands were rougher than those in the close quarters subunit. His calluses smoothed the mountains of concrete and peeled back the sun-bleached rejection letters until Taekwoon himself stood there. Soon, Wonsik began quizzing Taekwoon in the morning before classes, spouting codes that the latter had to answer as he brushed his teeth or pulled on his trainee uniform. At lunch, they sat knee to knee and when they ventured out to the bars with Wonsik’s fellow snipers, he kept an arm curled along the seat behind Taekwoon. They fit together, plain and simple. 

One night away of required bonding began in a bar and ventured into a dark alley filled with promises of ‘just try it, you’ll like it.’ Spinning lights in snapshots and he blinked in the blinding rays of dawn. His head felt like it might split in half but the fingers splayed across his shaved head bid him stay. When Wonsik woke up, Taekwoon pretended to sleep a little longer, silently assuring himself that his headache eased with Wonsik’s gentle touch. After an extra hour of resting, Taekwoon finally crawled upright, though he regretted it immediately. He didn’t ask what happened until days later when he could think straight again. As it turned out, he owed Wonsik his career after a near miss with local law enforcement.

‘Thank you’ would never be enough, so he tried to open himself up further, to return the glances and give his own small touches. Wonsik grew more radiant by the day as their time in the academy drew to an end. Taekwoon quietly wished that the last few nights of studying for their final exams could be extended infinitely. More often than not, Wonsik ended up draped across Taekwoon, head in his lap, and dozing with _Long Distance Calculations_ covering his face. Taekwoon never had the heart to move him.

Graduation day came sooner than Taekwoon expected and his fingers fumbled with the red knot at his throat. In the rabbit hole, around the tree, and then what? Did the rabbit get scared and run around the tree again? He could never remember. Wonsik curled his arms around him, first along his shoulders to signal his presence before tapping Taekwoon’s nervous hands.

“The dress uniform looks good on you,” Wonsik complimented as he nimbly tied the stubborn red fabric into a neat bow and fixed it at the base of Taekwoon’s neck.

“No it doesn’t.” Taekwoon tried to hide his face from the mirror, but Wonsik’s hand caught his chin and held it in place.

Taekwoon’s breath caught in his throat at the sanguine pleasure that slid down into his belly. In all his life, he had never felt like this: so whole and yet yearning for more.

“Taekwoon,” Wonsik whispered reverently, like a prayer. “Don’t let anyone tell you you aren’t enough.

As Taekwoon looked up, Wonsik’s exhale ghosted across his nape and their gazes met in the mirror.

“Not even you.” His roommate held his chin for a moment longer before releasing him and Taekwoon wondered if that would be the last touch they would ever share.

Hours later, Taekwoon walked across the ceremonial stage and sat two people down from Wonsik, now decorated with his first pins. Top of the CQ subunit, no disciplinary meeting in sight. Wonsik disappeared into the crowd as soon as they were free to go and Taekwoon assured himself it was for the better. His aunt greeted him with outstretched arms and watery eyes and Taekwoon embraced her with everything left in his body.

Traditionally, the class the year before would take the new graduates out for a celebratory bar crawl that ended in blackmail material for the rest of the rookies’ lives. After Taekwoon’s last experience with a bar, he buffered himself with a non-traditional dinner with his aunt.

“Don’t they do some crazy drinking thing?” Auntie Hwasa asked over a shared pizza, her eyebrows arched high with curiosity. “I thought for sure your friend would drag you off right away.”

“I wanted to pack first,” Taekwoon answered before he busied his mouth with cheese and sauce.

“Woonie…” his aunt began, but they’d had this conversation before regarding Taekwoon’s quiet nature. It always ended with ‘okay, as long as you’re happy’ in a tone too skeptical for his liking.

Maybe he _would_ pack. Moving out of the dorms would be nice. No shared bathroom, no cold showers after a long day of training, he would like having his own space. After dinner, Aunt Hwasa reminded him he was still young enough to make mistakes. Taekwoon offered a placating smile and hugged her once more before he returned to the greying building he started calling home only a few short months ago. Packing would be cathartic, he told himself as the elevator dinged at the fifth floor and he stepped out onto carpet grit with winter’s touch.

Taekwoon pushed open the door to his shared room just as Wonsik pulled and the two faced each other. Over Wonsik’s shoulder, Taekwoon could see his roommate’s bed already stripped of personality. Gone was the lamp they huddled around after curfew to keep studying. Gone was the blanket Wonsik had wrapped around his shoulders whenever Taekwoon sniffled with the beginnings of a cold. Gone was Wonsik’s touch, leaving behind only the blistering cold of the wind at the crossroads. They belonged to two different subunits and rookies rarely got assigned to the Special Operations Unit right away, though Taekwoon knew in his heart Wonsik would be one of the few. Even if Taekwoon somehow magicked his way onto the SOU, the likelihood of partnering ranked just above impossible.

“I…” Wonsik started and stopped himself in the same breath.”I didn’t want to be in the way when you got back from partying.”

Taekwoon wondered if they had stepped through a tear in reality, back to a time of heavy silences and awkward attempts at conversation. If it meant he could relive the mornings filled with Wonsik’s complaints about terrible coffee or the nights of boring protocol, though, he would welcome whatever consequences came down the pipe with it. But that possibility rested beside their parting in the SOU on the continuum of probability.

“Alright,” Taekwoon spoke only to acknowledge Wonsik, to make sure the latter knew just how dumb an excuse he had just provided.

When Wonsik smiled, the dull navy swiped the rosegold away, like a terrible rain storm. Taekwoon hated that color on Wonsik.

With nothing to say other than apologies, Taekwoon stepped out of the way. Wonsik’s head dropped for a moment before he nodded. Wonsik paused for a moment in the threshold. They stood inches apart for so long, Taekwoon wondered if his roommate— no, _Agent Ravi_ — could hear his mind screaming to ask him to stay just one more night, so they could go out and be young and make mistakes together (beautiful mistakes they could laugh about in years to come). If Wonsik _could_ read thoughts, he didn’t respond to Taekwoon’s.

As Wonsik’s back retreated down the hall toward the elevator, Taekwoon felt like he was eight again on Christmas morning, sitting alone in a house emptied of his family’s effects. ‘I’m sorry Woonie, your parents asked me to take care of you’ rang in his ears as he watched Wonsik disappear into the elevator. And just like that, it was done.

Taekwoon stared at Wonsik’s empty bed through the drunk dials from the other CQ graduates. He finished packing with his usual efficiency and stood in the middle of the empty room. His copy of the protocols manual sat on the academy-provided nightstand and the bookmark peeked out at him. He tugged it free to read it one more time.

_Leo,_

_Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not enough._

For the first night in years, Taekwoon cried.

A week later, his studio apartment in a quiet sector of the dome received its first handful of mail. Mostly bills, of course, but a rigid white envelope had been tucked in between them. His first set of orders. Too much experience with rejection letters made him paranoid. He probably got First Response Unit, the borderline canon fodder, consisting almost entirely of rookies. Dinner came first, then a shower and a brief look at his growing hair. As he crawled into bed, he carried the envelope with him. With a deep breath, he slid his finger beneath the seal and braced himself for the worst.

_Special Operations Unit, Agent Leo, #01190. Partnered with ██████, #09302. Report to your assignment within 72 hours._

Taekwoon didn’t notice the smeared ink in his excitement. After managing to sleep an hour or two, he greeted the sun with a cup of coffee and a second look at his new partner’s name. No amount of squinting revealed anything, so all that remained was to report to the SOU. His heart beat too loud in his ears as he imagined Wonsik’s face lighting up with that beautiful rosegold again. Just as soon as he considered the possibility, though, doubt robbed his former roommate’s face of color in his mind’s eye. After all, Wonsik had left with barely more than a few words, none of them goodbye. Still, just seeing Wonsik after a week of too much space, too much quiet, would be enough. 

When he found his desk, someone with obscenely orange hair had already perched himself on the corner. Taekwoon attempted to swallow down his disappointment, no matter how bitter. As soon as his shadow crossed the desk, though, the man turned and Taekwoon held his breath. His hand still held the letter with his orders when warm hands curled around his and lingered longer than he ever thought possible.

Wonsik smiled up at him and held out his own set of orders.

_Special Operations Unit, Agent Ravi, #09302. Partnered with Agent Leo, #01190. Report to your assignment within 72 hours._

“Oh, so we’re partners?” Wonsik asked, eyebrow raised and Taekwoon couldn’t help the grin that spread across his own face.


End file.
